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Chapter 10: Seeing Double

That is the meaning of: The Way is right in front of your eyes. It is everywhere because nothing else can be - only the real is.

Then what is the problem? Why then do people go on seeking and seeking and seeking and never find it? Where does the problem exist? What is the basic core of the whole trouble? The trouble is, mind can be in thoughts. The possibility for mind being in thoughts is there. The body is in reality, but the mind can be in thoughts - and that is the duality. And all your religions have been in favor of the mind and not in favor of the body. That has been the greatest block that has ever existed in this world. They poison the whole mind of humanity; they are for the mind, not for the reality.

If I tell you: When you are eating, eat with taste, and eat so deeply that the eater is forgotten, simply become the process of eating - you will be surprised because no religious man will say a thing like that. Religious people have been teaching: Eat without taste - aswad; they have made a great thing out of it, the training for no-taste.

In Gandhi’s ashram they had eleven rules. One of them was aswad, no taste - eat, but without taste, kill the taste completely. Drink - but without taste. Make your life as insensitive as possible. Deaden your body completely, so that you become a pure mind. You will become so - but this is how people go towards madness.

I teach you just the contrary, just the opposite. I am not against life - and life is the Way. I affirm life in its totality. I am not a negator, I am not a denier - and I want you to bring your mind back to reality. Your body is more real than your mind. You can befool with the mind, you cannot befool with the body. The body is more rooted in the world; the body is more existential than your mind. Your mind is just mental. It thinks, it spins words, it creates systems - and all systems are foolish.

Once it happened:

Mulla Nasruddin was gambling in a horse race. First race he lost; second, he lost; third - he went on losing, and two ladies just by his side sitting in a box were continuously winning every race.

Then at the seventh he could not contain his curiosity. What system were they following? Every race, and it was now the seventh, they had been winners and he had been a loser, and he had been working so hard at it. So he gathered courage, leaned over, and asked the ladies: “You are doing well?”

They said, “Yes,” very happily, they were beaming with happiness.

So he whispered: “Can you tell me about your system? Just a hint.”

One lady said laughingly, “We have a lot of systems! But today we have decided for long tails.”